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How long to add queen to split hive

I have pulled brood and honey from strong hives. I have pleaced two frames of each in Nuc boxes so how long should I wait to add queens to the Nucs for the best acceptance of the queen? I put in one queen about 4 hours after placing the Nuc at its new location and it seemed the bees attacked her but she went to the bottom of Nuc so I am not sure what ended happening.

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

I leave my sitting overnight and then go put caged queens in the next day. Give them time to know they are queenless. I then don't open the hive for 10-12 days to check her. Give them time to get used to her and release her at their own pace. Has worked well for me. I also feed them pretty good when I introduce the queen.

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

Leave them queen less for 24 hours. Then put in a mini queen cage with the queen so they can release
her 3 days later. Sometimes they are queen less for a long time that their level of acceptance just
shoot thru the sky. Level of the queen acceptance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVKalyj1xiI
But they cannot fool me after killing 2 queens that cost me a lot. The final one I let them willingly to
accept her in 2 and a half days later.

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

How about if you know your new queen has been in transit in the mail for 4 days? Can the worker bees feed her and keep her alive 7+ days after being caged? Should you release her after 2-3 days after installation? Isn't she at risk of dying from being caged too long?

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

Regardless how long she has been in the cage, the safest method is to put the cage in the hive & let the hive bees take care of them through the wires until they are released.

I have dealt with queens that have been in the mail and faired poorly, looking like they are on deaths door and with dead nurse bees. What I've done in those cases is make up a new cage with new nurse bees, and transfer the queen to it, so there are healthy bees to take care of her in a clean cage. Then introduce in that cage. Although attempting this could cause problems in itself, for someone with not much experience. If someone is not confident to do that, all considered, it's probably best to introduce in the existing cage.

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

>How about if you know your new queen has been in transit in the mail for 4 days? Can the worker bees feed her and keep her alive 7+ days after being caged?

Yes. A drop of water a day will help. A dark quiet place to keep her will help.

> Should you release her after 2-3 days after installation?

A queenless hive will generally release the queen from a candy cage (assuming the cork exposes the candy, of course) in about four days.

>Isn't she at risk of dying from being caged too long?

You can keep a queen caged in a colony indefinitely. The bees will feed her and care for her if they don't already have a laying queen and they have had at least overnight to realize they are queenless. Usually 2 hours will do.

Re: How long to add queen to split hive

I put my queens in immediately after I split my hives and I just went there yesterday (it's been over a week now since I split them) and I see all the queens are laying already. Mine were caged queens though. Some queens weren't released by the workers so after 4 days I opened them up and let them go. They all worked out fine.